Mr. Pinkerton has thus expressed his sentiments concerning this work: “It has great merit for the age, and is eminently curious. The language in a few places is not sense. When, by altering a word or two, the sense may be restored, attention to this will not only be allowable, but laudable in any proper editor; especially when we consider the singularity of the case, and that the poem is very good sense everywhere, save in perhaps a dozen lines at most.” List of Scotish Poets, xc.
The late elegant author of Specimens of Early English Poets has remarked; “That a man born blind should excel in any science is extraordinary, though by no means without example; but that he should become an excellent poet, is almost miraculous; because the soul of poetry is description. Perhaps, therefore, it may be easily assumed, that Henry was not inferior in point of genius either to Barbour or Chaucer, nor indeed to any poet of any age or country.” Ellis’s Spec. Vol. I. p. 354.
As the venerable Minstrel could not himself have written his poem, succeeding ages have never had it in their power to view him in his proper character. It is unquestionable, however, that he has not, in any edition hitherto published, appeared to such advantage as he might have done. Almost every editor, from the time of Andro Hart downward, used the same unpardonable liberty with his work as with that of Barbour, in attempting to render it more intelligible, by substituting for terms, which had become obsolete, or were going into desuetude, others more generally known. Thus, from gross misapprehension, the very sense of the poet was often lost. Even the edition of Perth, A. 1790, which professes to be an exact transcript from the MS., is still more inaccurate than that of the year 1714.
Although, from his disastrous circumstances, the principal fountain of knowledge was shut up to poor Henry, it is evident that he had made trial of every other within his reach. Knowing the facts of his blindness, itinerary life, and oral publication of his poetry, the generality of readers, it may be presumed, have previously formed a contemptuous idea of the author, as if he had been a common ballad-singer, and have either read his book under the influence of this prepossession, or thrown it aside as unworthy of their attention. But it should be recollected, that the rank of a bard or minstrel was once very high among our forefathers; and that, although it had considerably fallen in repute by the time that Henry flourished, he did nothing that was deemed unworthy of the character when at its highest elevation. The language of Major has, it would appear, been understood according to the prejudices of our own time, not according to the sense which it must still have borne even in that age in which Henry lived, notwithstanding the Act of James II. A. 1449, against “bardis, or vthirs siclyke rinnaris about.” Acts, Parl. X. c. 21. “He procured food and raiment by the recitation of his compositions.” Is this any thing different from what was invariably accounted the privilege of minstrels? Did Henry recite his poetry to the vulgar; did he stroll through cities, towns, or villages with this view? Not a hint of this kind is given; the very reverse is implied in the specification made by the historian. He recited his compositions “in vulgar poetry” indeed, but it was coram principibus, “in the presence of princes,” or “men of the highest rank.” Major uses the most honourable term that he could select, to show that even the most exalted in the kingdom did not deem themselves degraded by admitting the Minstrel into their presence, or by listening to his poetical narrative. He indeed says; Quæ vulgo dicebantur, carmine vulgari, in quo peritus est, conscripsit; but he does not mean by this to affix a stigma on Henry’s style of writing. The use of the term vulgari, if not merely a paronomasia on the preceding one vulgo, can signify nothing more than that Henry did not write, as he himself did, in the language of the learned, which would have been lost even on men of the highest rank in that age. He does not mean to say that the diction of the Minstrel was low, and thus adapted merely to the vulgar; for then men of all ranks spoke in the same manner: but that his work, as being a collection of what was commonly related in Scotland concerning Wallace, was composed in the vernacular tongue. When he uses the phrase, in quo peritus est, he is not to be understood as uttering so gross a solecism, as to say that Henry was well skilled in the language of the lower classes, but that he was an adept in Scottish poetry; for it is evident that in quo more immediately refers to carmine. He designs to throw as little discredit on him by the phrase, victum et vestitum nactus est. For all that he could mean to assert by it is, that as the tables of the great were open to him, where, in former times at least, a minstrel had the prerogative of an honourable seat, he had also, by established custom from time immemorial, as good a right to claim the raiment allotted to his vocation as the baron had to exact military service from his vassals. Hence, when speaking of this procurement, he qualifies his language by the following insertion,—quo dignus erat; applicable not merely to the hereditary claim of minstrels, but to the peculiar merit of Henry as sustaining this character.
I will not pretend to exculpate Henry from the charge of credulity. Far more, however, has been said as to his ignorance than can be well supported. We have no other standard of the measure of his knowledge than his own work; and this, there is every reason to think, much disfigured by unavoidable corruptions. But even judging from this, we have sufficient evidence that, from his early years, he must diligently have used all the means of information which were properly within his reach. He seems to have been pretty well acquainted with that kind of history which was commonly read in that period. He alludes to the history of Hector, of Alexander the Great, of Julius Cæsar, Book VIII. 845, 886, 961, &c., and to that of Charlemagne, whose army, at Ronceval in Navarre, being betrayed by Ganelon, was defeated by the Saracens, Book VIII. 1256. XI. 837. V. Dict. de Trevoux, vo. Rouncevaux. With the romances that were most popular in that age he was perhaps as well acquainted as Barbour. He seems to have been familiar with that of Alexander; as, like the latter, he refers to Gaudifer, Book X. 342. V. Note on The Bruce, B. II. 468.
His acquaintance with the popular romances is perhaps still more apparent from his style of writing. As it abounds, much more than that of Barbour, with poetical allusions to the face of nature, which the poor Minstrel had never beheld, to the change of the seasons, to the supposed influence of the planets or of the constellations; it is more richly strewed with the more peculiar phraseology of the writers of romance; whence a stranger to our chronology might be induced to view the Life of Wallace as of an older date than The Bruce, although nearly a century later. We meet with a variety of terms or phrases in Wallace, which, from the difference of his habits, do not seem to have been familiar with the good Archdeacon of Aberdeen, as frekis, frekis on fold; bane and lyre; brycht, and frely of fassoun, for a fair maid, &c. &c.
It is necessary to observe, that the Minstrel’s mode of expression is often very elliptical. In order to understand his meaning, the reader must therefore recollect, that he very commonly omits the pronouns, whether personal or relative. This, to those who are not familiar with the ancient style, has given him an air of absurdity, and has induced the idea of his being far more illiterate than we can reasonably suppose him to have been. Let us take an example or two among many.
The defendouris, was off sa fell defens,
Kepyt thar toun with strenth and excellens.—B. VIII. 803.
The principal assertion is not, that the defenders were powerful in defence; but that they, being so powerful in defence, guarded their town well. The reader must supply quha, or who, after defendouris.
The mar, kepyt the port of that willage,
Wallace knew weill, and send him his message.—B. IV. 359.
“Wallace was well acquainted with the mayor, who kept the port of that village.”